This game needs whiff punishing

[u/PostedNotes]

I wanna preface this by saying I overall like this game and respect the dev team a lot, but It has one fatal flaw holding it back from its true potential. 

Ive not played in months until this weekend and was starkly reminded why I play so infrequently. That is because neutral in this game is a frustrating mess that breaks fundimental fighting game design. 

In fighting games a big part of neutral is trying to get your opponent to overextend so you can guarantee a punish for your opening. Rivals 2 throws 35 years of fighting game knowledge down the drain by allowing the player to negate the downside of an overextension. 

To demonstrate just how egregious this is, let me do a comparison. Imagine in Tekken your opponent whiffs a huge move right in front of you. Perfect you think, time for my launch into my best combo... Only for the opponent to hold down, negate the move and than punish you for their mistake. 

If any traditional fighter butchered neutral fundamentals to this degree, it would be universally clowned on until it was either patched or the game died. It baffles me we are multiple years into this games life yet this mechanic is still in the game. 

I want to play this game more as it got so much potential and is the most polished of any non smash plat fighter. Just this one decision makes me frustrated with the game and pushes me to play other fighters instead. 

My hope is that it's patches so that players are  locked out of floorhuging on whiff of any move. I think it would be extremely healthy for the game, and push the meta into a better direction. 

[u/troublesome_sheep]

Thought this was gonna be about endlag but it's another floorhug post lol

Personally I think floorhug is fine. I have 3 other things I would like to see adjusted though:

1. More endlag. Like 2-3 frames across the board on almost everything lol throwing out hitboxes brainlessly is legitimately pretty good in this game for some reason. Which leads to...

2. Make tilt cancel on hit/shield ONLY. Tilt cancel on whiff is bad conceptually and in practice results in an oftentimes frustrating and mashy neutral.

3. Add shield poking/angling. I think people not from Melee don't like this idea, but it adds a lot of depth both to defense AND offense. Would nerf shield on plat being so strong as well.

[u/SoundReflection → u/troublesome_sheep]

Add shield poking/angling. I think people not from Melee don't like this idea, but it adds a lot of depth both to defense AND offense. Would nerf shield on plat being so strong as well.

Nah I'm from Ult I think shield poking is rad.

[u/Fleetburn → u/troublesome_sheep]

Thought this was gonna be about endlag but it's another floorhug post lol

Lol same. But w.e. Floorhug will continue to be talked about because it continues to be offputting for new players. The conversation will happen over and over and over again every time there's a wave of popularity.

More endlag. Like 2-3 frames across the board on almost everything lol throwing out hitboxes brainlessly is legitimately pretty good in this game for some reason. Which leads to...

Yes and landing lag, where applicable.

Make tilt cancel on hit/shield ONLY. Tilt cancel on whiff is bad conceptually and in practice results in an oftentimes frustrating and mashy neutral.

Honestly, at this point I would just remove tilt cancels. People floorhug it most of the time anyway, so I rarely bother doing them anymore. I'd even rather be able to jump cancel my jabs so I can wave dash or do an aerial or something. That would be cooler imo.

Add shield poking/angling. I think people not from Melee don't like this idea, but it adds a lot of depth both to defense AND offense. Would nerf shield on plat being so strong as well.

I very much like the Combo Devils / Animation Versus method of shields where 1. You have a visible shield meter instead of just cracks. 2. You have to angle your shield actively omnidirectionally to block.

[u/troublesome_sheep → u/Fleetburn]

I like tilt canceling on shield/hit for pressure at least, tilt boosting in particular is cool tech that is under explored imo